The Steerswoman & the Outskirters

The Outskirter's Secret is the second book in Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series (the first entry of which I reviewed here, the third here, and the fourth here).

This will not be a completely spoiler-free review; so, if that bothers you, I recommend clicking on those Amazon affiliate links, buying the books, reading the books, and then coming back here to see what I have to say about them!

This episode of the series sees Rowan, the eponymous Steerswoman, becoming embedded in the Outskirter culture from which her friend Bel originates as they travel across Outskirter territory on the way to the site of the fallen guidestar. As such, the story is less about the overall series arc introduced in book one, and more of a deep exploration of the world itself, in which the author continues to employ dramatic irony that relies on the fact that the reader knows more about physics and technology than the characters in the book do, and thus can make faster inferences about the nature of said world. This helps to firmly establish the series as science fiction, rather than fantasy--a distinction which I, at least, still found somewhat blurred by the end of the first book. Although not every fantastical object or occurrence is explained, there is enough of a pattern here to convince me that there is a scientific explanation for everything, even if it has not yet been revealed to the reader.

There are two notable bits of linguistics; one of the reasons I was convinced to start reading this series in the first place was the presence of Old English poetry. Sadly, there isn't any actual Old-English-style poetry presented in the text, but the structural specifications of Old English poetry are identified by Outskirters as the signal of a true poem--that is, a poem which has been composed with the intent to convey real historical information via oral tradition. I thought that was neat.

The second bit of interesting linguistics comes when Rowan elicits a listing of all of the Outskirters' family lines... which are listed in English alphabetical order! Except for one, which Rowan notices is out of place--a fact which she attributes to historical sound change in the Outskirter culture. This is a major clue that this world is in fact a sci-fi human colony world, rather than a fantasy secondary world, with a direct historical connection to Earth, and furthermore indicates that either

1. Contrary to expectations for secondary-world fantasy stories, there is not in fact any narrative translation convention employed for this story; the characters who are presented as speaking English on the page, are in fact intended to be speaking English intrafictionally!
2. Or, whatever translation convention there is is nevertheless very thin, only adapting a future version of English in which common contemporary names at least are still recognizable in written form back into a contemporary dialect for the audience.

Apart from the linguistic bits, though, I also found it fascinating how the portrayal of the Outskirter culture partially embraces and partially undermines an ancient literary trope which Bret Devereaux terms The Fremen Mirage. Societies of the Mirage are portrayed as:

1. Unsophisticated and Poor.
2. Morally Pure, highly in gender roles, sexual purity, and abstinence from physical luxuries.
3. Ruthless and Clever. Unsophisticated, yes, but not stupid.
4. Martially Superior and quick to make war.
5. Having a logical basis for their peculiarities, usually rooted in the environment (cf. "Hard times make hard men."), or, in more modern versions, in genetics and race.
6. Existing in contrast with decadent civilization.

So, how do the Outskirters match up with each of these features?

They are absolutely unsophisticated and poor. They are nomadic, and have no possessions which they cannot carry with them. They have extremely limited food supplies. They have no ability to produce metal, and little enough access to it that the make swords from dense wood.

They are ruthless and clever, and perceived, both by themselves and by most Inner Landers, as excellent fighters; however, when tested, they are not inherently better than Inner Landers who have had martial training (although they do, quite naturally, have a better grasp of the dangers unique to their native environment than do Inner Landers who visit them). They are definitely quick to make war, and extremely untrusting of anyone not belonging to their same tribe.

They certainly have a logical basis for all of their peculiarities, even though they themselves do not always know what that basis is. In fact, identifying the reasons for all of the strange practices that Rowan is told about or introduced to among the Outskirters could be argued to be the central purpose of this book (sure, Rowan gets to the guidestar in the end, but that's just what happens, not what the book is really about), as it establishes the science fiction background of the setting. Additionally, the Outlanders themselves believe their peculiarities to stem from their own genetic superiority and racial responsibilities; in particular, they have a strongly held belief that they are the original humans, either separate from or ancestral to Inner Landers, and that being Outskirters requires them to live the way that they do.

They definitely exist in contrast with what they perceive as a decandent Inner Lander civilization; but the author, and the Inner Lander characters themselves, do not share that perception. More interestingly, however, the more-outer Outskirters believe themselves to be morally superior to culturally-decayed versions of themselves that exist closer to the Inner Lands--a belief which does seem to be shared by Rowan once she is able to compare them.

Note that I skipped over addressing point 2, because this is where the Outskirters most seriously diverge from the core of the Fremen Mirage trope. In a sense, the Outskirters do put significant moral weight on gender roles--but, specifically, in not having many of them. In almost all ways, men and women are treated completely equally in Outskirter society. They are also portrayed as quite sexually liberal, and while the particular customs around sexual encounters are new and weird for Rowan, the liberality is seemingly unremarkable. Given the harshness of their environment, which might reasonably be predicted to force significant division of labor along gendered lines, I can only see this as an attempt by the author to deliberately subvert the trope of sexual morality being connected to sexual conservatism, instead showing the Outskirters as moral because of their sexual liberation, in line with more progressive contemporary views on sexuality.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the next entry in this series; and in the meantime, if you liked this post, please consider making a small donation!

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